1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to data processing systems and, in particular, to performing file system updates. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and program for using a Java archive to encode file system update information.
2. Description of Related Art
The problem of providing updates to the installation image of a customer application is a well studied problem. Often, a customer application is created which encodes all required update information. A deficiency of this solution is a lack of generality, both in terms of handling different customer applications, and in terms of a reliance on a non-industry standard packaging mechanism.
A related solution is to pack new or updated files into an archive, either as a Java pre-specified archive (JAR), ZIP archive, or a Tape archive (TAR) file. This related solution avoids the above deficiencies; however, this solution fails to provide complete update information. The standard ZIP, JAR, and TAR formats do not provide information that describes contained files as new, updated, or obsolete. Another disadvantage of these solutions is a lack of platform independence.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an improved mechanism for encoding file system update information.